By Liz Shepard, USA TODAY
Michigan Police Officer Brandon Rossow recognized the blue bear clutched by the 3-year-old he came to visit at Pine Grove Park.
Nearly four years ago, he brought that bear to a boy in the hospital. The infant boy had been found abandoned on the porch of a Port Huron home.
Rossow said seeing the infant all alone in the hospital room didn't seem right. So he decided to bring in the bear with a child's size navy blue shirt and badge.
[post_ads]At the park Monday, April 30, Rossow had something to show the boy's adoptive mom, Jamie Welser. Rossow still has Ben Welser's first known baby photos on his phone.
Rossow said Jamie Welser has told him that the bear remains an important part of her son's life.
"I got pretty emotional, I didn't expect that," he said.
Rossow and Officer Derek Paret both responded to the May 25, 2014, call about the abandoned infant. Monday, April 30, 2018 was their first reunion with Ben.
Jamie Welser said reuniting Ben with some of the officers who helped save him was important.
"To be able to follow up with them and thank them for being there that morning," she said.
Jamie Welser got custody of Ben when he was about 2 months old. The case of the abandoned baby had made the news, she had read about it, but it wasn't until she was about to get him that she was told "he's that baby."
Starting at about 5 months old, medical bad news began accumulating for Ben. He has a severe brain malformation and other problems.
Jamie Welser and her parents have worked to ensure Ben experiences as much as he can. She said meeting the officers was on their personal bucket list.
Rossow said not every call as a police officer feels great, even when he knows he's doing the right thing.
But with Ben's initial call, they knew they were doing good.
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The infant was found on the front porch of a home in the 1200 block of 11th Street shortly before 4:30 a.m.
A neighbor's dog alerted its owner to the infant, wrapped in a bloody towel on a porch chair.
Before the end of the reunion, Rossow gave Ben's mom a bracelet he has been wearing reading "What's Important Now." Jamie Welser, in turn, gave the officers Super Ben bracelets.
Ben giggled as they traded stories.
"This is Ben, we haven't seen much of this Ben in a while," Jamie Welser said.
Ben was recently placed on hospice care and the bracelets were given to those who participated in the SuperBen Virtual 4K.
